Posted
by
timothy
on Monday July 25, 2011 @08:42PM
from the imitation-adoption-adaption-repeat dept.

suraj.sun writes with a ComputerWorld piece predicting the end of Twitter, at least in its current form. From the article: "It's only a matter of time before Twitter becomes a ghost town. While Google+ will soon do all the things Twitter does, Twitter can't support a long list of the things Google+ supports. Also on Google+, you can post pictures and videos directly in posts, launch immediately into a video chat, send your posts to nonmembers and even present all your posts marked 'Public' as a blog available to anyone with an Internet."

I guess the biggest pest was the one that just told you they bought the internet, am I right?

But aaahhhh, yes, the good ol' days, when the internet was still a lot more free and the average idiot was still a bit less clueless than today because getting on required actually being able to rub two brain cells together... and still you had those interesting calls that made you wonder, that gave you stories that sound like they're made up until you realize that they're SO outlandish that nobody with a hint of an

"Friending" on Facebook is different from "Following" on Twitter. On Facebook it's symmetrical -- I can't friend you, unless you also friend me. On Twitter it's asymmetrical -- you can follow me, without me following you back.

This difference alone is why Facebook will never kill Twitter. (And I'm not even talking about the horrible UI mess that is Facebook, or it's atrocious privacy reputation.)

Google+ follows Twitter's following philosophy and in that way is much more like to Twitter than Facebook is. OTOH, Twitter allows anonymity which Google+ sadly doesn't.

Google tried to kill it with Buzz, but only got a hangover:P . If I want to share something interesting with Google's services, I need to choose between three:

Google Reader

Google Buzz

Google+

Note that these are not fully integrated, so people are segregated by the service I use to broadcast. Twitter is just Twitter, can be as closed for outsiders as a doll's an*s, and comes in 140 characters (more than enough for the ADHD-afflicted masses).

"Note that these are not fully integrated, so people are segregated by the service I use to broadcast. "

Thank god! I'm a little worried by a facebook-clone (google+) linked with my email (gmail) linked with my youtube linked with my twitter (google+) linked with my search (google) linked with my Android phone linked with GPS. I really really don't like the idea of all of these communicating with each other whenever they want.

Twitter is about a uni-directional attention-whore self-absorbed broadcasting medium. Let me broadcast as much inanity and bullshit about my life to tens of thousands of people who are hanging on my every word, because I have a podcast, a tech blog, an album, or a pair of tits. Twitter is about catering to attention-whores and their sycophants and as a result, there will always be a place for *any* utility that facilitates the experience of said attention-whore the broadest and easiest.

I wouldn't bet on Twitter remaining for long either. They are operating at a loss and venture capital is the only thing keeping it going right now. For years they literally said they didn't know if they even had a business model.

Is Twitter is to big to fail ? After all it is 4 times as big as MySpace (and supposedly it failed).

The people that invested in Skype did get their money back, Microsoft probably won't directly. Maybe indirectly, we don't know.

"While Google+ will soon do all the things Twitter does, Twitter can't support a long list of the things Google+ supports"

Since when has featureset been Twitter's strong point?! It's managed to own all other competition while staying remaining in and of itself a platform that you can post 140 characters of text on, nothing more.

We’ve noticed that many violations of the Google+ common name policy were in fact well-intentioned and inadvertent and for these users our process can be frustrating and disappointing. So we’re currently making a number of improvements to this process

And what about those of us who share names with celebrities, or things like that? The case of "Mike" Bolton from Office Space does actually happen in real life (case in point, if you google my name, you either come up with stories about somebody in Arizona who pissed off a Dell tech support agent, or you come up with somebody who's working as a model in the UK).

And that's to say nothing of people who've legally changed their names in protest, or because it's funny. I had a prof in University who changed his last name to Strangelove when he got his PhD. There's also been a fairly well publicized incident last year in Canada because somebody who had changed his last name to Nobody was arrested during the G20 protests, and got abused by cops who thought he was lying about his name.... What's going to happen when somebody with a name like that signs up to Google+?

I, for one, do *not* want to have to send them a copy of my driver's license just to prove that I am who I say I am. Frankly, it's not their fucking job to police anonymity on the Internet. I could sign up saying that I'm the Queen of Sheba, and they have no business asking me to prove that, because it's just an Internet site. If I was applying for a job, or wanting to run for public office, I could see the requirement for some proof of identity, but it's just a social network, and if they can't see the difference then I don't want to have anything to do with their stupidity.

If you read the link at the top of the linked post, you'll see that Google says they will support pseudonyms. Not right now, but eventually.

People who NEED pseudonyms now should not use Google+. When it meets their needs, then they can hop on, if they like. I think Google is doing the right thing in not trying to support every use case right out of the starting gate.

Read article, still scares me. If I get reported for something, they will shutdown not just my G+ account, but could possibly block all linked accounts?

Which article did you read? The one at the top of the subthread specifically points out that that is not the case. If you get all linked accounts blocked, it's because you were doing something that would always get all linked accounts blocked.

When an account is suspended for violating the Google+ common name standards, access to Gmail or other products that donâ(TM)t require a Google+ profile are not removed. Please help get the word out: if your Google+ Profile is suspended for not using a common name, you won't be able to use Google services that require a Google+ Profile, but you'll still be able to use Gmail, Docs, Calendar, Blogger, and so on. (Of course there are other Google-wide policies (e.g. egregious spamming, illegal activity, etc) that do apply to all Google products, and violations of these policies could in fact lead to a Google-wide suspension.)

NB: I don't trust Google any further than I can throw a Quantum Fireball underwater, but there are plenty of legitimate issues to worry about without clouding the issue with bogus ones.

What started that, anyway? The only mass-block I heard about (admittedly, I'm not following it closely) was that twelve-year-old kid who didn't lie about his age and got blocked because the TOS of all google services says you have to be 13. Is that where this came from?

If you get all linked accounts blocked, it's because you were doing something that would always get all linked accounts blocked.

Well, that's OP's point, isn't it? His twitter account and his gmail accounts are not linked, thus violating TOS of one of the services will not get the other locked. The reply from Google, linked a few parents up, only discusses the trivial naming policy violation, which I guess is an extremely small subset of possible violations.

And this is why I have different Google accounts for different services. Yes, I had to tie my YouTube account to a GMail. Did I tie it to my "real" one? Heck no. Why? Because I don't plan to lose my GMail account over something I post on YouTube or vice versa.

And why'd I bother to? What benefit do I have from "integrating" those services? I mean, aside of a lot of spam every time some idiot deems it necessary to "invite" me to his channel?

Or when the Amiga mopped the floor with MS-DOS when it offered multi-tasking, no 640k limit, no segments, system support for stereo sound, graphics, and printing.Actually Google+ has become less useful because of Googles removing of some users. What makes Twitter useful to me are a few "users". Breaking News, BBC, NASA, and some other news sources. The tech bloggers that I follow on twitter I also follow on Plus but those news services are the ones that I want back.But then I have mostly left Facebook years

Where Twitter loses is in monetizing traffic. In other words, Google knows how to use your traffic to feed you ads that sooner or later you click on. They do it well enough to make a lot of money.

This works for Google because all of their products draw you into their web space, and you can't avoid being presented with Google Ads.

The weakness of Twitter is that in many ways it's easier to use from a phone, Hootsuite, or some other client - even Google Plus with an add-on. There's never any need to actually visit the Twitter web site.

Consequently they're stuck with those idiotic "Promoted Tweets" - which in my experience are so far removed from anything that interests me that I really think they're using chimpanzees instead of algorithms to place them.

I don't look at the ads. You learn how to ignore them as they're only mildly relevant. They make some people money in a vacuous ecosystem, but for many of us, they're just visual noise in the background.

Twitter doesn't have them, doesn't require a smartphone or above, and gets a lot of work done with great brevity. Google is like an army worth of features to get lost in, some good, some bad. Twitter is very and deceptively simple, and there's wisdom in doing at least one thing right.

I kind of look at twitter as an rrs hosting service (for personal use) that put a web interface on the top and made a purpose built manager and search engine. Its main success was that the account was secondary to the "tweets" (so you did not need to share personal information, and you knew what you were sharing) and that they got media endorsement. The limitations lowered the barrier for the general public to use it.

If you look at Google+ and Twitter as APIs, then you can implement Twitter using the Google+ API but not the reverse. That doesn't mean things can't change, but I bet a few Twitter project managers have been sleepless lately.

Twitter will take a hit, but it will survive. It is enough different from G+ and FriendFace that it will continue to fit the needs of much of its user base. What I find most interesting is that nobody has mentioned Diaspora since Google+ launched. Is it a dead project?

I have a Facebook, don't use it. I don't need Google+. Twitter is a good niche for me because it allows me to keep some track of my friends without having to know every damn thing they are doing. It also lends to being more anonymous. I don't really want my real name out there except to people I really know well. But I have plenty of followers on Twitter who like what I post and don't care that much EXACTLY who I am. Twitter lends itself well to that since neither Facebook nor G+ allow pseudonyms.

I really can't see Google+ replacing Twitter anytime soon, as Google+ has a strict requirement for real names and will even close accounts based on it. Twitter on the other side is fine with pseudonyms and gets used a lot with them, not only from people that want to keep their real names private, but also organizations and companies that use it as their news feed or just from fake personalities for commedy purposes.

Google+ seems to have some plans to allow business use in the future, but right now they doesn't and it's not clear if they only allow that for money or also for the average make-shift organization (i.e. Anonymous, Wikileaks, Free Software stuff, etc.).

As far as I see it, with it's requirement for real names Google has essentially taken a first real step to being evil, while Twitter on the other side seems to be a much more open platform that is used by a lot of people that don't want their real names to be known for one reason or another.

As far as I see it, with it's requirement for real names Google has essentially taken a first real step to being evil, while Twitter on the other side seems to be a much more open platform that is used by a lot of people that don't want their real names to be known for one reason or another.

How do you come up with that conclusion? That's like a child saying their parents are evil for making them go to bed at a reasonable hour. If you look at all the other social networks, a lot of griefing and spam comes out of people using fake accounts and psuedonyms. Its not impossible to do either of those on google+, but its certainly going to make people less likely to do it. I think griefing and spam is evil. I think that google is perfectly justified to prohibit the use of pseudonyms. Especially since

The problem with that logic is that we are dealing with Google here, they have enormous market power and are shoving their G+ right into every bodies face right on their main search page. So while it is totally optional right now, its a closed beta after all, it could become far less optional in the not so distant future and then we essentially have an email replacement that only allows real names. You really don't want something that could become a central part of the Internet infrastructure be dominated b

Is this about advertising revenue and more accurate subscriber numbers to up ad revenue when introduced? Is the policy an attempt to give Google+ more credibility? Forgive my bluntness, but I don't believe for a moment that you truly think the naming policy is enforceable. What is the REAL reason behind the policy against anonymity here?

I use Twitter because of SMS, and it doesn't cost me a dime (since my plan has unlimited SMS whether I use it or not). So until Google offers SMS services, Twitter style, anyone going from Twitter to Google+ will be limiting their market. Then again, maybe I'm special.

I still use a Nokia 3120 (I think that's what it is) and have no data plan, so first-class SMS support is Twitter's killer feature for me. Until there is a smart phone and data plan out there which meet my needs and price, I will keep this arrangement as long as possible.

Not if Google keep banning years-old email accounts for stupid little problems associated with Google+. I wanted to join when my sister sent me an invite (not because it looked that great, but because my sister asked me to join), but I resisted because it was too new and too closely linked to other Google services. I'm glad I did, since Gmail has been my main email provider for several years, including for work, and my Google/Gmail name is not 100% accurate. I'd hate to lose years of email due to some dumb little infringement of an unrealistic TOS agreement. Maybe eventually, but for now there are too many kinks to work out.

You don't lose access to Gmail (or Docs, Calendar, Blogger, or any other Google service that doesn't require Google+) if you're banned from Google+. The only way you can get a full Google-wide ban is if you're caught breaking a Google-wide policy such as spamming or illegal activity. They've also changed their policy so they give you fair warning to change your username before they lock your account, and there's an appeals process in place to get your account back if you do get banned for using a fake usern

Seriously, this is 'Will Wave Eat E-Mail' all over again. No. It has long strings attached. It has plenty of bells and whistles, but this is comparing apples and fruit baskets, or a can opener with a Swiss army knife. Sometimes all you want is an apple for your teacher, and sure you can cut meat, whittle wood, read fine print, tweeze splinters and even open cans with your knife, but it'll be faster and cheaper if you just go out to the kitchen and use the tool that was designed for that and nothing else.

Is there a "best of email," or a "best of websites"? Neither of these make much sense, because the point of web sites is to read the ones your interested in, and the point of email is to communicate with the people you know. Likewise, the point of Twitter is to follow people you are interested in and/or know. If you don't know of anyone who is of interest to you who uses Twitter, there's not much point in you using it, just as it would be pointless to use email if you didn't know anyone else who used email.

I'm actually on G+ and I use it kind of a lot. I thought the discussion might benefit from somebody who's actually actively using the service rather than having sampled it and written it off as "I hate social networking and this is social networking". I'm enjoying it a good bit because it's more interactive and engaging than Twitter and with a lot more obvious and up-front control over everything than on Facebook.

The integration with Picasa is excellent and I'm looking forward to the (optional) integration with the other services. I'll really be happy with it when Gmail and Voice filters can use my Circles to do useful work, i.e. let family and friends through, dump the other crap.

I'm still using Twitter, mostly because I'm still following #FuckYouWashington, but less and less. G+ easily occupies the same space as Twitter and with a little tweaking will easily replace Facebook for me.

As for the supposed privacy issues, I haven't run into anything that concerns me. When I share something Public, I take for granted that means Public. When I post to a smaller Circle, I trust it go to that smaller Circle. If they want a more accurate profile of me to present ads which I might conceivably be interested in while I'm doing my friends-and-family socializing, that works fine by me. I've dismissed about a million Zynga ads on Facebook and their ad-bot code can't take a hint so more accurate ad profiling works in my favor by being less irritating by several orders of magnitude.

Moreover, I can use any pseudonym I like as long as I don't use it on G+ which seems a reasonable trade-off. If your concern is that the CIA might get grandma's cookie recipe, then you're screwed if your family is contacting you through G+ but hopefully you're bright enough to do anything truly nefarious on a more secure channel.

I follow a couple of Googlers, a couple of celebrities I was already following on Twitter and that's just about it for now until invites are opened a little wider. In all it's low-key and fosters a more interesting kind of correspondence. Open discourse seems to pop up a lot more often and it's a lot more coherent than either a Twitter discussion or a Facebook comment thread not to mention a lot easier to join a public thread.

This is like asking whether nose-picking is going to obsolete butt-scratching. I mean, sure, there's an answer ("probably not"), but even if it does, the only discernible effect will be the usual six-month lag before TV journalists catch up to whatever bit of jargon replaces "tweet".

Right now, Twitter has some advantages that Google+ doesn't have. They aren't insurmountable, but Google+ as it stands now won't replace Twitter.

- SMS Updates: Right now, I can text 40404 with a tweet and it'll appear on my Twitter stream. Google is apparently testing this in India. No news on when/if this will appear in America and other countries.

- API/Third Party Tools: Right now, I can run Seesmic Desktop to check my tweets. I can have my blog tweet for me. I can program my own application to interact with Twitter. Twitter lets me do all this thanks to their open APIs. Google+ currently doesn't have any APIs. Once they get an API-set, then people can develop tools to let me access Google+ without actually having to go to Google's website. Until then, they'll lag behind.

- Names: I use a pseudonym on my blog and Twitter. I don't use my real name (unlike on Slashdot, but this account was from years back when I didn't care about privacy as much). Google+, however, demands that I use my real name. I don't want everyone I tweet/blog to to know my real name. I'd rather show them the pseudonym and let certain circles see my real name. If Google+ would let me choose who gets to see my real name and who doesn't, they would solve this problem. (They could require you input your real name but then have you set which circles see which names/nicknames.)

I'll keep an eye on Google+, but until they fix the above items I'm not abandoning Twitter for it.

People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. -Steve Jobs

I'm not saying it would stop anything major, but if you accidentally post those honeymoon pictures to your co-workers circle, you can easily delete the post and re-post to the correct group (MidEast Swingers circle).

Remember when because some of your colleagues were on ICQ or AOL but some were on Yahoo Messenger but some were on MSN but some had started to move to Skype etc you ended up having to have accounts with all of them because you don't control which account the person you need to speak to likes to use? And the techies amongst us started wanting tools like Kopete to deal with our plurality of accounts? That's the direction I see social networks going in. Already there are people who are Facebook friends whose Facebook status updates come from their Twitter app. Meanwhile many Twitter posts are there to point me to blog articles on blogs that I could also individually follow using RSS. And all those social communities hasn't, for instance, stopped me doing the old fashioned form of community of visiting and commenting on sites I like, like Slashdot. One more social network does not necessarily mean death to the rest. I don't see Twitter and Facebook following Bebo and MySpace into insignificance. It means yet another system I'll need to have an account on because people I need/want to follow/talk to use it. It does not mean I have a new single account that I consider to be my identity -- "me on the web" -- it means I'll have (well, if someone sends me an invite) an additional personally identifiable account on the Web. I think interoperability between social networks is going to be the next big battleground.

Anyone I don't know who follows me on Google+ gets moved to "Blocked".

Anyone I don't know who follows me on Twitter, as long as they don't spam me, is ignored. I only follow people I know or I find very interesting who is being followed and is following another person I know.

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Honestly, for me, Google+ is useless and because it doesn't tie in with other applications I use (Hootsuite, etc), I have no use for it and I rarely pay attention to it.

Isn't that one of the main features, that you can follow someone without getting permissions? That doesn't mean you'll be spammed. Anyone can see your posts anyway if you make them public, all the "follow" does it make sure they see them sooner than later. If you don't want friends outside of your circles seeing the posts, then don't make them public.

That's cute, but even if you "follow" someone, you only see his public posts unless they also add you to a circle and share a post with that circle. And I have a feeling there won't be many public posts on Google+, seeing as how most people are treating it as Facebook without the privacy issues.

You're assuming Google+ users are also Facebook users and will make some errors due to confusion. I think there will be lot of non-Facebook users on Google+ who won't do stupid stuff like Weiner-gate because they've never used social networking before and don't go into it with the assumption that only friends see my stupid stuff. People who like Facebook will keep using Facebook, they don't need two sites to monitor every minute.

Sure there is. If they have a mail icon next to their name, they're not on it and updates you send them are e-mailed to them. If they don't have a mail icon, they're on it (you can verify that by hovering over them, which will give you a link to their profile).